Is luck a thing?
What part of success or failure can be attributed to luck, or whether luck exists or not, is a common debate for which there cannot be an absolute answer because the word itself is some kind of umbrella term with primarily subjective connotations.
I don't consider good and bad luck at opposite ends of the same spectrum, and I absolutely differentiate the realms they belong to.
Bad luck
I find it self-indulging to talk about bad luck at all. This thing didn't happen because I had bad luck. I should be rich by now, but I had bad luck. This is like pretending that the usual thing we can expect is that things go smoothly and the world serves our purpose, and anything that deviates from that is bad luck. Well, this is very far from reality. There is no outcome at all that you can expect from any multidimensional, complex situation, so when you start anything, especially if it requires discipline, preparation, and effort, you should assume that any of the multiple things that should be true for your outcome to occur, will fail to be true. So failing is not actually a strike or bad luck; it is the default. This is not a negative thought but rather the opposite: what you can call bad luck is just the bottom line: anything positive has to be built on top of the default - which is nothing.
Good luck
I am a grateful person, and I’m conscious (or want to be because it feels better) that a significant part of my success is due to luck. I have worked 80 hours per week since I can remember. And I do try to push myself at any opportunity I have. But many people do the same or more and don’t get the same outcome. Also, some people have not done anything of value and are in positions they don’t objectively deserve. So there is something there that is an external factor, and we can call it good luck.
But some would argue that good luck is just relentlessly jumping to opportunities when they pass before you. But let’s distill that. It would take:
Identifying those opportunities. Opportunities don’t come with a sign; they are not self-evident.
Knowing what “jumping” means. What is the next step? What should I do to leverage that opportunity?
Transform whatever it is into something actionable, execute it, and react accordingly to the outcome of every step.
And consistently make more good decisions than bad ones.
Seizing opportunities seems to require a significant amount of conscious effort and certain skills. Therefore, when you observe someone who has achieved certain success and -in otherwise equal conditions- it seems mainly attributable to external factors—i.e., luck—it's possible that those external factors are possible only due to the internal attributes of that person.
But then, well, about those internal attributes…we can close the loop by saying that they are also there by luck. When a person keeps putting to use the correct attributes (it doesn’t matter if it is talent, or getting away and surviving through shame and pitty or others), or a person keeps choosing right -or serendipitously- at the right time and perseveres in the right way, consciously or not, it may be because that person has, maybe by chance, maybe from birth, the skills or traits that allow them to act in a certain way: the ultimate “luck” of the genes or the upbringing and any other thing that determines us to be one way or another.
So is it everything chance and luck? Even what seems intentional and conscious and your own merit? Is everything random?
But luck or not, what is the difference?
One way or the other, it doesn’t provide any value to determine if luck is a factor in anything. Ultimately, the whole concept is more of a matter of naming or definitions because the actual variables to control in a given situation remain the same, and you cannot leave anything to luck. Luck serves to describe things in retrospect but nothing else.
It is true, though, that talking about luck removes responsibility, and that can be the actual use -or misuse- of it. If things depended on me, I somehow would need to understand what I have done right and keep doing more of so, and assume that it is also on me when I fail because there are no random external factors. On the other hand, if luck is a primary factor, then life is easier, I just need to cross my fingers and try to keep catching green lights or surfing the wave, so I hold limited responsibility for the success. I also have a straightforward and unquestionable reason to justify if something doesn't go as expected, so I hold limited responsibility for failures as well.
If we rule out luck, what you have to do with your own success is some kind of fuzzy function that factors in many variables: preparation, effort, perseverance, awareness, awakeness, and drive, and those variables may have or will have different weights, and those weights remain the same whatever are there other external factors or not.
Further reading
It's not necessarily related to my perspective, but a real masterpiece on luck is Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of my favorite writers.
This book explores how we perceive and handle luck in life and business (focusing particularly on trading, where luck is often mistaken for skill). It is a landmark work essential for understanding random outcomes. Taleb succeeds in tackling three major intellectual issues: the problem of induction, survivorship biases, and our genetic unfitness to modern life, and highlights our tendency to overestimate causality and view the world as more predictable than it is.